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as the endlessly escalating sectarian violence in iraq drifts into what many are now officially calling a civil war, it amazes me how stupid and inflexible presidential rhetoric remains.  bush refuses to call the conflict a civil war, refuses to accept US responsibility for the current state of affairs, refuses to consider multilateral diplomacy with syria/iran, and even in the face of his own analysts doubting our capacity to effectively keep the peace, bush says we need to ’stay the course’ and ‘finish the job’ and ‘fight for victory’ and most offensively, ’spread democracy.’  yeah.  democracy my ass.

bush is an embarassment to the country, an insult to the presidency, and a waste of space in the white house.  houseplants in the oval office could probably draft better foreign policy.  everytime i hear his slurred texan grammar on the radio, i cringe with agonizing amazement that half this country actually re-elected this absolute moron in 2004.  can someone please explain to me why this drunk mediocre cattle ranching yale flunkie’s ignorant swagger attracts voters?  even in the midst of his widely acknowledged failure on many fronts, his approval rating still hovers around 30-40%.  am i missing something here?  nearly 4 out of 10 americans still thinks bush is doing a good job?

i just don’t get it.  i realize i may be out of touch with the midwestern and southern breadbasket of america, but maybe if i keep watching the bigot frat boys and racist rodeo clowns in borat, it will come back to me…

with a recent post about hypocrisy, i’ve been pondering my own complicity in this pharisaic religion we call christianity.  granted, i haven’t been exposed by some salacious scandal involving illicit substances or ‘relations,’ but my rhythm reading of isaiah led me to a particularly convicting passage in chapter 5 that would sum up how i’ve been feeling.

And he [God] looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

basically, the first five chapters of the book are full of very strong language of impending judgment for the erring nation of israel who had neglected their calling to be a blessing to the nations.  in response to their corruption, apathy, and tolerance of injustice, god proceeds to tell them that they are in big trouble because he’s (1) very pissed off, and (2) disgusted by israel’s religious rhetoric and empty worship.

i often wonder if how i’m investing my time and resources is really just perpetuating the charade of ignorant religiosity in the church (but in an aesthetically attractive, nice-sounding way of course).  am i participating in upholding the systems of privilege, classism, and injustice more than i am protesting, educating (myself and others), and actively pursuing equality and empowerment for the least of these?  am i truly an authentic, committed adovcate for deep and lasting change or am i merely replicating eye and ear candy for religious consumers once a week?

obviously there are no simple answers here, and this situation has far more shades of gray than i’d care to sort through, but more and more as i reflect on how god has wired my heart and brain and soul, i’m convinced that i can’t simply just sit, stalled and stagnant, while i try to answer these questions…

my local polling station was packed last night, and i’m (for the first time in a long time) happy to see political change on the horizon- it’s good to know my vote matters. bush, who “thought we (the GOP) would do fine at the polls,” is now admittedly disappointed and claiming responsibility for widespread republican losses, even saying “shows what i know” upon seeing the massive congressional shift.

with the biggest news being rumsfeld’s retirement (praise the Lord!), this is a huge day of victory for political progressives, anti-war activists, and people just generally fed up with bush’s broken administration. i wonder how evangelicals are handling it all. my hope is that conservative ‘values voters’ got a chance to read david kuo’s tempting faith, a white house insider’s look at how bush and his buddies mocked evangelicals and gloated about their manipulation of the christian right. kuo, who was second in command of bush’s high profile faith-based initiatives campaign, revealed that the GOP pretty much squandered all the funds on politically friendly groups who had little to do with any real christian agenda aside from getting kickbacks from all of bush’s buddies.

i can only hope that conservative christians will WAKE UP and smell the corruption, and embrace the change ahead. after you’ve been used and abused, it’s a good thing to learn your lesson. ah, it’s a good day in washington….

if you wanted to discredit christianity as a pharisaic, hypocritical religious charade, then it almost seems like there’d be no better way to do it than by having your prominent spokespeople commit the very ’sins’ they passionately decry in public. it’s embarassing and shameful to me that the most damaging tactics to publicly discredit the church are coming from within- from someone like ted haggard, megachurch pastor, author, and president of the national association of evangelicals, who is now confessing that some of the allegations against him are true.

we’ve all made our mistakes, but the issue here is not about personal pietistic sin or grace (grace that is of course readily available to ted). the real issue at hand is the ongoing rhetoric of the church, particularly evangelicals, that simply continues to create a bigger and bigger gap between people who call themselves christians and the culture we’re called to engage. this type of scandal has been all too common and with the reputation of the church in the gutter, we cannot expect the voice of ‘christian values’ to be given any serious consideration in a context where we’re constantly identified as hypocrites.

christendom is dead. america is not a christian nation, nor was it founded with that intention- and regardless of what the religious identification surveys say, the ‘true’ christian worldview is increasingly being pushed to the margins in the dominant pseudo-secularization of society. but here’s the irony- i would argue that the recent resurgence of conservative evangelicalism is actually contributing to the secularization of our culture. rhetoric about gays is the perfect example- the more conservative christians condemn and dehumanize homosexuality, the more the church will be forced to retreat from the public sphere. and in the private religious enclave of safe and ineffective christianity, millions of people are comforted with insular spiritual masturbation- all the while convinced that everything’s fine in accepting apathy instead of engaging mission. welcome to 21st century of western christianity- the joke is on us.

yesterday afternoon, the somali family moved into their new place in kent and i have to admit that chris and i are slightly relieved to have some peace and quiet around the house. we’re glad we hosted, but it was definitely a lot of work (for which chris deserves most of the credit). seeing all that goes into the process, i have new respect for refugee case workers and the overall resettlement process.

the random encounters throughout the week have made me think a lot about cultural relativity- especially about how our perception of what’s right, best, and true is so culturally conditioned. of course i think it’s better (and more sustainable) to have a smaller family, and of course i think toilet paper is better than splashing yourself in the tub, and of course i think it’s normal to occasionally (okay, frequently) enjoy some processed foods that many people around the world wouldn’t recognize (try explaining what’s in a hot dog to someone who’s accustomed to slaughtering their own meat).

but i hold these values primarily because my culture has continually affirmed and reinforced its boundaries, substantiating the appropriate plausibility structures whenever necessary. in other words (or according to peter berger), my reality is a social construction. there is no culturally neutral information i can share with any degree of certainty that it is devoid, above, or outside of culture- no authority beyond my cultural experience. this recognition is frustrating because i’d love to believe that my views actually are more correct. perhaps they partially are, but i haven’t figured that part out yet…